Name: María Álvarez Ruiz

GT: 1

UNIT 2

THE LEXICON

Introducción a la lingüística en lengua inglesa

Grado en Estudios Ingleses (Plan 2010) y Doble Grado en Estudios Ingleses y Filología
Hispánica

1. What word-formation processes are illustrated by the following English

words (classify them according to the schemes of §4.2 and §4.3)? Try making
an educated guess first, then look up the word in a good dictionary.

TYPO Clipping from typographical

TEENS clipping from teenagers + derivational inflexional suffix
-s for plural
PORN Clipping from pornography
ASAP Acronyming: As Soon As Possible
REAGONOMICS Blending: Reagan + economics
BOATEL Blending: boat + hotel
AC/DC Compounding of acronyming from alternating current/
direct current
CARPETERIA Derivational suffix from carpet
GARGANTUAN Borrowing from French Gargantuan
SANDWICH Meaning extension
WORDSMITH Exocentric compounding
GALOOT Coinage: new sailor
PEDDLE Backformation: peddler
DOODAD Coinage: ornamental attachment
KARAOKE Borrowing from Japanese カラオケ
BROLGA Borrowing from the aboriginal language Gamilaraay
Burralga
DARWINIAN Coinage: Charles Darwin’s thoughts on evolution
 ALCOHOL Borrowing from Arabic Al-kuhl
LA-DI-DA Coinage: pretentiously elegant
FRIGIDAIRE Meaning extension

2. Find out about the meaning and origin of the word googol. What sort of word
formation process does it illustrate? Why do you think this word caught on?
How would you account for googolplex?
A googol is a large number written 10100. It was invented in 1920 by the 9-year-
old nephew of the mathematician Eduard Kasner. The word formation used for
this word is coinage as it was unrelated to any others previous words in any
language.
I think the word primary caught on because it is more practical to say googol than
10100, but also because of the story behind it.
The word googolplex was later proposed to mean “one, followed by writing
zeroes until you get tired”.

3. A number of English words for large numbers are constructed with the
ending of -llion. What is the basis of these formations? Find as many such
words as you can, and state their meanings. Are there any additional
motivations for any of these terms?
The basis of these formations is the word million from the Latin mille which
means thousand. English speakers use the suffix -llion denominate large numbers
to the affix, they add a syllable to indicated the quantity, for example, trillion: tri-
(three) + -llion (million) = three millions (1018).
Examples of words ending with -llion are: million, billion, trillion, quadrillion,
quintillion…

4. It was mentioned in §4.3 that the word for ‘policeman’ in Walmajarri is

limba, the word for a particular type of fly. In the local dialect of Aboriginal
English this same fly is referred to as a bolijman blai (policeman fly). What
sort of word-formation processes does this illustrate?
It illustrates the word-formation process of borrowing; this consists on the
incorporations of words from one language into another. Borrowed words are
called loanwords.
5. List some idioms in a language you know, along with their meanings;
determine what modifications (including exaggerations) they allow. Try to
account for the idiom.
In Spanish there are a wide variety of idioms, my personal favorite is: “Tetas y
sopas no caben en la boca”, I use it a lot and it means that you cannot have it all
at the same time, you have to choose. In this case no modifications are allowed.
Another one is “De tal palo tal astilla” it translates to “like father like son” and
it means that a child portrays the same characteristics as their father. In this case,
we could change father for mother if the characteristics we are referring to are the
ones the mother has.
An additional one that that allows modifications in Spanish: “Había tres gatos”
the only change it allows in to swap “tres” with “cuatro” that means four, this
switch is permitted, in my opinion, because it changes depending in what region
of Spain you say it. It means that there were very few people at a place you have
been.

6. Make a list of as many binomial expressions as you can. Can you see any
patterns in the ordering of the words, in which word goes first? Can you find
any trinomials?
Bigger and better Cease and desist Dead or alive
Dos and don’ts Fair and square Hugs and kisses
Life and death Pots and pans Rise and shine
Pen and paper Questions and answers Thick and thin
Cats and dogs Men and women Butter and bread
In my opinion, the explanation for the order of the words in the binomials may
have a lot of options. In some it might be that the first one has more importance,
for example, in pen and paper the pen is more important because without it we
cannot write anything. This even may apply in men and women if we think in the
mindset of the time this expression was created. In others, like questions and
answers it is just the order in which they happen: first you make the questions and
then you have the answers. And in others it can be that the first word is shorter
than the second like in fair and square.
Some examples for trinomials are:
 Bell, book and candle Calm, cool and collected Knives, forks and spoons

7. Find a newspaper or magazine article reporting on a war. List the

expressions referring to events involving the killing of people; classify the
expressions as euphemisms, dysphemisms or neutral expressions. Are there
any differences in the expressions – or their frequency – that are used for
killing of people on different sides? If there are differences, what do they
reveal? What other euphemistic or dysphemistic expressions can you find in
the article?
-Euphemisms: conflict, damaged.
-Dysphemisms: killing, deaths, destroyed.
-Neutral expressions: injuries, attacks, war crimes, genocide.
The word attack is the most used throughout the article alongside with injuries
and killing or killed.
In this case the part portraying the attacks is always the same because the article
is about a broken ceasefire from Saudi Arabia in its war with Yemen, so we can
see that there are more euphemisms when the journalist in talking about the
victims of the attacks.

8. Slang is a somewhat imprecise term used for colloquial, informal or non-

standard language. What are some examples of slang terms used by people
in your generation? See what you can find about the slang of your parents’
generation. What similarities and differences do you find? How would you
classify the expressions you collected in terms of the processes discussed in
§4.2 and §4.3 above?
To go to the toilet
-Older generation: “to spend a penny”, “to powder one’s nose”
-Newer generation: “to take a leak/ a dump”, “to do a number two”
To be drunk
-Older generation: “zozzled”
-Newer generation: “wasted”
Difficult, challenging
-Older generation: “gnarly”
 -Newer generation: “in a bind”
Excellent, cool
-Older generation: “groovy”
-Newer generation: “lit”, “fire”
There are some terms that have no similar expression in older generations like:
“brb: be right back” – “asap: as soon as possible” – “LMAO: laughing my ass
off” – “NSFW: not safe for work.” New slang tends to be more acronym based
because of phones, technology, internet and apps and the rhythm of the society.

9. What word-initial phonemes or phoneme sequences do you think are

phonaesthetic in English? What meaning do you intuitively feel is associated
with them? Make up a list of words beginning with the sequences that
support your intuitions.
Gl – soft, light: glow, glitter
Fl – fire/water: floor, flush, flame
Sl – slime, slug, slush: slippery, cluster
Ph – phantom, phobia, phosphorous, phase: something we cannot touch,
insubstantial.
Gr – ground, grave, grass: to refer to something earthy // growl, groan: sound we
make with our throat.

10. Here are a few apparently relatively new technical lexemes culled from
recent issues of Scientific American. Can you guess their meanings? What
processes of word formation do they exemplify? To what extent is their
meaning arbitrary or motivated?

- Exoplanet: planet outside the solar system. Primary Clipping: exo- from extra
solar. Secondly derivation: derivational prefix. Its meaning is motivated as the
prefix exo- means external, exonerate.
- Wiki: web or database developed by community users. Clipping from Wikipedia,
it is also a borrowing from Hawaiian wikiwiki which means fast.
 - D-GPS: Differential Global Positioning System. Compounding of acronyms:
Differential compound.
- ADDL: Animal Deceases Diagnostic Laboratory. Acronym.
- Zeptoliter: unit of volume equal to 10-21. Zepto- means seven take from Latin.
Derivation but the prefix is heavily borrowed from Latin, in this case is important
because it only occurs in the fields of math and physics.
- Pre-bang universe: The universe before the big bang. Compound and clipping
from Big Bang, Bang onomatopoeia.
- Geolocation: really exact location of something or someone in the planet Earth
since geo refers to the planet. Derivation: derivational prefix geo-.
- Picokelvin: unit of temperature equal to 10-12. -kelvin: meaning extension. -Pico:
very small unit. Derivation from a scientific point of view. Pico is a borrowing
from Spanish pico.

11. Recent years have seen a spate of words ending in -aholic or -oholic, as in
workaholic. Find as many of these as you can (look on the Internet). What
sort of word-formation process is involved? What does -aholic or -oholic
mean, and where does it come from?

The affixes oholic/-aholic denote a person who is addicted to something. Activity

that creates addiction.
-Shopaholic: someone addicted to shopping.
-Sexaholic: someone addicted to sex.
-Chocoholic: someone addicted to chocolate.
-TVaholic: someone addicted to watching television.
-Pornoholic: someone addicted to pornography.
-Gymaholic: someone addicted to going to gym.
The word formation process involved is endocentric compounding. It mixes two
words; the principal word, which carries the central meaning, and the suffixes -
aholic or -oholic.